When Dr Guthrie came to Edinburgh
in 1837, he was appalled by the sights he saw in the Cowgate. Day after day he would visit squalled tenements
where he would find horrific poverty and little interest in the gospel. Even those with some income often squandered
what they had in the ‘dram houses’ or tippling shops’ which Guthrie did so much
to shut down. As he said on one occasion:
‘Nobody can know the misery I suffered amid those scenes of human wretchedness,
woe, want and sin.’ It was out of these
experiences that Guthrie would emerge as the ‘Apostle of the Ragged School
Movement’ and the ‘Apostle of Temperance’.
So what were Guthrie’s views on poverty?
How did he think poverty could be alleviated or even cured? How does this compare with the rather narrow modern
day debate which is almost exclusively financial?
In his ‘Sketches of the Cowgate’
which were reprinted in ‘Out of Harness’ Guthrie tells the story of a house he
visited which was like a traveller lighting on an oasis in desert sands. Unlike the houses he usually visited that
were filthy, this house was clean and bright: ‘The door opened on an apartment lighted
by windows whole and clean, neither patched with paper, nor stuffed with rags,
nor crusted with dirt like bottles of old wine; a floor white with washing, and
sprinkled with yellow sand, stretched to the fireplace, where the flames
reflected from shining brasses, danced merrily in the grate over a well-swept
hearth-stone.’ Guthrie, as always, uses
very vivid language to tell the tale. He
was seeking to contrast what normally greeted him when a door was opened in the
Cowgate. The couple were members of his own
church and he was delighted to find such a well presented home.
As Guthrie writes about this
visit 25 years later (probably for the Sunday Magazine), he remembers how
convinced he was that it was a God fearing home: ‘It was a Bethel; God was in
the place; and though, like the patriarch, I was in a sort of wilderness, this
pleasant sight was a reality – no vision, like the ladder and angels of his
dream.’ The house that Guthrie had entered
was that of the ‘blind organist’. Every
day this man sat at the top of the Mound grinding a barrel organ. His face was horrendously scarred by small-pox
and he was blind, no small disadvantages in Victorian Scotland. If there was any house where dirt might have
been excused and the signs of poverty expected it would have been in this
house. Yet as Guthrie says: ‘it was
remarkable by their absence.’ What was the difference between him and his
neighbours? Well Guthrie gives us the comparison:
·
They never went to church; he did.
·
They had no respect for the Sabbath; he kept it
holy to the Lord.
·
They had no religion; he was a man of devout
habits.
·
They indulged their vices; he practised the
virtues of Christianity
As Guthrie says: ‘So even in the
world, his religion was of more advantage to him than their eyes were to
them. It made him careful, and frugal,
and temperate.’ As Guthrie left the home
he said he desired to chalk on the wall of that house for his neighbours to
see: ‘read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.’
Surely the blind organist proves
to us that ‘Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life
that now is, and of that which is to come’ (1 Timothy 4 v 8). Of course there are exceptions to any rule
but generally speaking those who live a godly life can say with the Psalmist: ‘I
have been young and now am old, yet I have never saw the righteous forsaken, or
his seed begging bread’ (Psalm 37 v 25).
To make this a rule without exception would be unwise. We are certainly not claiming that those who
fear God will not experience poverty.
This would go against many Biblical examples including Christ
himself. As Guthrie says of the exceptions
to this rule: ‘All good people are not wise.
There may be devotion without discretion; saint-ship, but little common
sense; and an examination of those cases where piety is associated with poverty
and does not succeed in this world, will often discover the peculiarities of
the circumstances.’ What we are seeking
to argue is that if there are limited resources, godliness, as in the case of
the blind organist, can certainly make these resources go much further. A house where there is alcohol and drug
addiction, gambling and poor budgeting is a place where poverty will undoubtedly
be exacerbated.
Guthrie certainly believed that,
despite the exceptions to the rule, the house where God was worshiped, would
more often than not be a house where though there might be poverty, there was enough
to live on. There may be several reasons
for this but surely the main one is that Christianity teaches a man
self-denial. As Guthrie says: ‘this
virtue lies at the foundation of success in every business and pursuit…’ He continues: ‘It teaches him to say, No! –
to sacrifice his passions to his interests; and abstain from those indulgences
which, wasting time, squandering money, impairing health, injuring character,
lead to the results that, though often attributed to misfortune, are usually due
to misconduct.’ Guthrie wasn’t naïve to
the injustice that many workers suffered despite working their fingers to the
bone: ‘Alas! That many of our working people should doom themselves to toil on
till they sink into the grave; or till, amid privations and infirmities that
gather about their grey heads like clouds around a setting sun, they have to accept
the bitter bread of charity, and at an age when transplanting suits them as ill
as it suits a hoary tree, are torn up by the roots and removed to the dreary
walls of a Poor House, - to be nursed, when dying, by hirelings, and thrust,
when dead, into a pauper’s grave.’ While
showing mercy throughout his ministry Guthrie fought injustice at every turn,
as we to are commanded to do. He was
certainly not blind to the exploitation that was rampant in Victorian Scotland,
but he believed that a difficult situation could be made much worse if meagre
wages were squandered on drink.
The second aspect that makes
poverty less likely in a Christian is that he is willing to work. Idleness and sloth are condemned throughout
scripture. As 2 Thesselonians 3 v 10
reminds us ‘If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.’ Now of course this is not saying that if
there is no work available it is wrong to accept help and charity, it is saying
that if work is available but somebody choses rather to do nothing, our system
should not encourage this. One of the
key aspects of the Ragged Schools was that the children were taught a trade so
they could go on to work and earn a wage.
Guthrie sought to break generational poverty by giving young people a
trade so they could be delivered from the cycle of poverty and charity. As he
says in a speech to the Evangelical Alliance in 1867: ‘From a hundred
prisoners, there may be 99 who come into prison by drink. Now, give Bible and porridge, and the bottle will
be put away. But we give them still more
than the Bible and soup – bread for the soul and body. We try to make them men and women. They are trained to industrial occupations;
and formed to several professions in order to become good handicrafts; often
they are sent to the colonies.’ In other
words, the Ragged Schools offered these young men and women a new life as well
as the simple basics they lacked.
The Blind Organist reminds us that while we may come across people with many disadvantages, self denial, hard work and ingenuity can go a long way in transforming a situation. This is in no way to underestimate the devastating effects of poverty. Those experiencing poverty and marginalisation appreciate financial help but most of all they need acceptance and community which the church is able to offer in abundance. Even more than that they need to transforming power of the the gospel that can set them free from the sin that traps so many in a cycle of deprivation and destruction.
In our next article we'll see how both Thomas Guthrie and Thomas Chalmers worked to eradicate poverty in the Parish System sometimes referred to as the 'Parochial System.'
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